Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1887-05-26
Read Good Books.

In his sermon yesterday DR.. Talmage
warned his hearers against bad books and
profigate literature. He took lis text
from the nineteenth chapter Of Acts,
which describes the burning of the bad
books of the Epbesians.
''Well, my friends,n said the preacher,
t'the great need of all cities is great
bonfire of all bad books. Some Publish
ers would do well to burn all their stock,
make flame 100 feet high. We should
all burn until there is no Ubiquitous liter
allure left in OR libraries. The printing
press is the great agency that exists to-
day. When will cease the influence of
Horace Greeley, Henry J. Raymond,
James Gordon Bennett, Watson Webb,
and Tomas Kinsella, the great editors of
the past? Think that the New York dali
les print 700,0 600 copies day, and then
try to estimate the influence of the Amer
lean press. l believe that the improved
press is to be the ultimate savior of the
world.
1.-The way to stamp out bad books is to
print more good cooks. God speed the
cylinder of the honest elevated, upright
and progressive printing press. What
books, what newspapers should we read?
You see / put them in the same class. A
newspaper is a speedy book printed in a
more portable and handy from.
standing as we do chin deep in fictit-
lous literature, shall we read novels?
say that there esome good novels which
are profitable reading, but at the same
time say that 90 per cent of novels are
bad and unwholesome Pure fiction is his
tory poetry combined. We can never repay
the debt we owe to Hawthorne, Cooper,
Mrs. Edgeworth, Thackeray and Dickens.
The more of such books that go forth the
better. But the great numbers of trashy
books that are being printed are to be
condemned. Some of them, too, are print
ed by respectable publishers, who twenty
five years ago would not have touched
such books. They will blast your children,
befoul their minds. On the parIor table,
in the trunks of the young men, on the
steamers everywhere you find these mind
distroyers. People are very willing to
read bad books.
Il charge you to avoid all books which
give false picture of life. Life is Meth
er tragedy nor travesty. All men are
not knaves nor heroes. All women are
not angles or scolds. Let man become
an inveterate novel reader and he will not
be fit for banking house, the Office, or the
store. He becomes nuisance. That
NOIAch WIZ 10 Ill AuNOGSIdtC uOfOi ISdSAS1
is not fit for mother, wife or housekeeper.
There she sits weeping at midnight over
some detected lover. Laughter. The
carpet was plain before, it is now almost
unbearabIe.
Life is a tremendous disciplinarian, and
those persons who give themselves up to
lndlscriminate novel reading will not pre-
pare themselves for the trials which come
to every one.
Il charge to you to beware of all books
that have an admixture of good and evil.
You have read such books. Which stuck?
The bad. Human mind is like sieve.
1t Sits the gold aud retains the dirt.
You plunge through bunch of burrs to
get one blackberry, AID you will get
more burrs than berries. The person
who reads such books is like the
man who takes torch and goes into a
> powder magazine to see if it will blow
up. You can't touch sin even with the
most gentle touch without getting singed
You can't fool around the cage of iniqui-
ty without having your soul torn and Ia
cerated.
avoid all books which corrupt the ina
gination. I am not speaking Of the kind
Of books saw recently on the Brooklyn
bridge, 1 saw a man take from under
his coat when he thought nobody was
looking and hold it out to young man.
My soul boiled Indignation, but have